One o’Clock Wake-Up A GODLIKE adventure for 13 regular grunts By Greg Stolze and Shane Ivey Arc Dream Publishing • www.arcdream.com • US $4.95 One o’Clock Wake-UpONE O’CLOCK WAKE-UP A GODLIKE Adventure for 13 Regular Grunts By Greg Stolze and Shane Ivey, © 2003 Illustrated by Dennis Detwiller; Designed by Matt Snyder The units of the 112th Regiment were overwhelmingly The Battle of the Bulge outnumbered, with scattered patrols and squads facing four In December 1944, after six months of battle from the shores entire infantry divisions and three panzer divisions. But of Normandy to the borders of Germany itself, the Germans they held fast where they could. Some of them interrupted finally retreated across their reinforced borders at the the German advance, but others were pinned in their towns Siegfried Line and the Allies settled into the Belgian woods and bunkers by massive Tiger tanks and simply passed by for some much-needed rest and recuperation. in the Germans’ blitzkrieg rush westward. The men of the 112th Regiment of the 28th Division Deadly American artillery fire and the bombs of U.S. (U.S. V Corps) were billeted in the towns of the Our fighter-bombers checked the Germans briefly on December River valley on the borders of Belgium, Luxembourg, and 17, but not for long. That night, having lost contact with Germany, about 10 miles south of Allied command at the rest of the 28th Division, most of the 112th Regiment St. Vith. They had six weeks of nightmare combat in the retreated across the Our river at the town of Ouren to hold Huertgen Forest behind them—combat that claimed more new positions on the west bank. than 6,100 men of the 28th Division alone, earning the Unfortunately, several squads of the regiment’s “G” 112th the nickname “Bloody Bucket” for more than its red Company remained trapped on the east bank at Flussburg, keystone emblem—and they looked forward to a peaceful two miles south of Ouren, while Germans stormed past. Christmas in the European snows. On December 18, a patrol reported that the situation It was not to be. of the trapped company had worsened overnight: German On December 15, mere days after the last fighting Übermenschen had arrived to root out the Americans once ceased, an eerie glow lit the night sky as distant German and for all. spotlights shone on the overhanging clouds and turned Out of contact with his commanders, and lacking orders the darkness to twilight. Then sentries saw curious pin- to the contrary, Major Freeling of the 112th Regiment points of light winking in the distance and wondered what made an executive decision to rescue those trapped men. He the Germans were up to—until the shells started falling. ordered squads of companies E and G to do the job, with German infantry and tanks roared over Allied positions, help from a few stray Sherman tanks of the 7th Armored led by the dreaded Überkommandogruppe SS Heinrich Division, while the rest retreated slowly westward. Himmler, the first army composed entirely of Talents. “Hit those Überkrauts hard and break our boys free,” Somehow, Hitler had taken a battered army and a demor- Freeling said. “Then come west across the river again. alized populace and forged them into a force ready to shatter We’ll catch the Germans there and give them hell!” the Allied victory. The Battle of the Bulge had begun. Flussburg in the Battle of the Bulge. Permission granted to photocopy for personal use. SUPERHERO ROLEPLAYING IN A WORLD ON FIRE, 1936-1946 1 ONE O’CLOCK WAKE-UP and ruined by shelling and combat. German machine gun Rise and Shine nests have been dug in to the nearest corners facing the The tank commander’s map. Permission granted to photocopy for personal use. In “One o’Clock Wake-Up,” the players are not Talents bridge, now blasted by artillery fire and piled high with facing mundane and superhuman threats—they are the dead Germans. Thick fog limits visibility to less than 100 regular Joes of the U.S. Army. Some of them are volunteers yards. and some are draftees, but all are just trying to stay alive. It is deathly quiet, except for the distant, muted sounds Many are veterans of the recent campaigns, but none have of combat to the west—across the river. been in this man’s Army even a year. Only nine riflemen are alive among the nearly 30 lying This time, the Talents are the enemy. The players’ only on the bridge. Inside the Sherman tank, three of the five mission is survival. crewmen survive—a gunner and the tank commander, Lt. Hand your players all 13 pregenerated characters and let Simonson, are crushed in the wreckage. Another tank crew- them pick the ones they want. Have each player take more man is alive on the ground with no idea how he got there; than one character if necessary, or hold the extras as NPCs his own tank is nowhere to be seen. and replacements. Either way, keep them around. The play- Every soldier is shocked and dazed at first, but they can ers will need them. (Character sheets and damage silhou- gradually piece together their situation. Give them hints ettes can be found online at www.arcdream.com/godlike.) from “What Happened?” (below) or let them have the The mission begins with every character unconscious. whole story at once, as pacing allows. Tell each player to pick one character and roll 1d. Whoever Their commanding officer, Captain Farley, was one of rolls highest wakes up first. those caught in the open, and there’s barely enough left to The GIs are scattered across a crater-scarred cobblestone identify him. His map is burned to a cinder. In the tank, road, lying in mud and ice as snow gently drifts from the Simonson’s maps are blood-soaked and all but illegible. gray sky. They are surrounded by bodies, dozens of them, The survivors are leaderless and lost, there’s no sign of the many of them very obviously dead. A Sherman tank lies men of “G” Company; and the closest thing to safety is on upside-down not far away. Behind them is the shattered the other side of that river. stump of a once-beautiful bridge, standing high over the Now they just have to find a way across. frigid Our river. Before them is a quaint German town, its neat rectangular buildings and tree-lined streets smoking SUPERHERO ROLEPLAYING IN A WORLD ON FIRE, 1936-1946 2 and Volksgrenadiers battled the American platoons to a brutal standstill on all three bridges,ONE O’CLOCK only to be WAKE-UPblasted What Happened? by artillery just as they moved in to capture and kill their Late in the morning of December 18, riflemen of attackers. Three Übermenschen and a handful of regular Company “E” crossed the middle bridge escorted soldiers survived. by three Sherman tanks. Halfway across, they began The surviving Übermenschen are SS Obersturmführer exchanging fire with German machine gunners. Wilfred Stark (called Der Holzfäller, “The Lumberjack”), Give each rifleman with a Sight skill of 1d or second in command of the Jagdverbände; SS more a Brains+Sight roll to remember seeing a lone Sturmscharführer Paul Krähe (Das Nebelgaspenst—“The German in a black SS uniform run out into the street, Cloud Ghost”); and SS Unterscharführer Emil Rasch shrugging off bullets like they were pellet-gun BBs. (Die Raserei—“The Rage”). Stark is now on the north He gestured at the tanks and shouted— bridge, one of the few survivors of the fight there after —and suddenly, one of the Shermans flew up into the Americans retreated westward. Rasch is on the south the sky. It came down in the middle of the advancing bridge, having barely survived when artillery shells blasted Americans, shattering the bridge like a bomb and tak- it to smithereens around the attacking Americans. Krähe, ing another Sherman and several GIs with it into the knocked out of the sky by a stray airburst as he flew low icy waters. The Übermensch turned on the third tank across the town, is a few blocks from the middle bridge. and shouted, and it rose into the air. Then the streets all around exploded with incom- ing artillery fire. It was American “time-on-target” Locations in Flussburg fire, several batteries timed to drop all at once on (1) The Middle Bridge. This is where the players start— the German positions. Nobody knew who had called dazed, vulnerable, and lost. They can collect two intact M1 it in, or why it was only dropping now that the Garand rifles and extra rifle ammunition (68 rounds) from Americans themselves were right in the thick of it. the fallen Americans nearby, if they want them. One of those first shells exploded near the Inside the up-ended Sherman tank are a first aid kit, an Übermensch, killing him instantly. The tank fell 15 intact spare periscope (heavy but serviceable), hand radios, feet to the cobbled street and landed upside-down. flashlights, and a wide variety of tools. The shells kept falling as the Americans charged The tank radio (more powerful than a hand radio) is across the bridge, looking for any cover they could not badly damaged and can be put in working order with find. Some of them made it into newly blasted cra- a successful Brains+Electronics roll and a car engine to ters. Others were caught in the open. Within two power it.